The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-11-26
LELAND sTANFoRD's GIFT.


Gov. Stanford's gift is said in round
numbers to amount to $20,000,000 of
which not less than $S0O0O00 is the pre-
sent value, and the $20,000,000 seems to
be almost within the grasp of his own
generation. He has given to it $4,000
acres of land not excelled in this State,
and probably in the world, for fertility
and development in the near future.
There are about $500 acres right around
the new college building; the largest tract
is at the Governors great vineyard, where
there are nearly 1000 acres of bearing
vines. In another tract there are 5000
acres. You can imagine what this vine-
yard ought to do from the fact that right
at the university is small vineyard of
forty acres, from which the Governor has
received as high as $1,000 year for the
grapes alone, and never less than g., 200.
Much of the land within few miles of
this university now brings 81 600 per
acre. 1t is true that all such lands are COW
cred with orchards or vineyards, but most
of these are only from three years old to
twelve years old; and / saw one piece of
ground of ten or twelve acres over which
there is lawsuit between two ruit-pick-
ers, one of whom pays $4,000 year to
pick the fruit alone, and the other, think
ing himself swindled at not getting the
fruit to pick, has brought the suit.
This land, however, even with orchards
and vineyards upon it, would seem to be
prospective and speculative dover to
college if it were not for the fact that
the building, which l personally walked
over and took in with my eye, is in size
almost unexampled in the history of col
lege buildings. The house now going
up, which is expected to be dedicated
and occupied next year at the time the
son of Mr.. Stanford would have been
man at his majority had he lived, is 600
feet long by 200 feet wide. This is the
size of the quadrangle merely, and the
cloister or covered walk around the inside
of this square is LOO feet in length. The
Capitol at Washington is, think, a little
longer than the first block of this Stan
ford University. IL there be people ready
to jump at the conclusion that SO much
building indicates lavish expenditure
and future extravaganza in keeping it
up, would arrest their wisdom by the
remark that this great quadrangle is only
one story high, and is conceived In breadth
but not in holiness, and with due refer
ence to the future-indeed with more
reference to hundred years hence than
to the present day The man who resolved
to conclude his career and lay his ashes
in this institution, has been wide awake
all his life, and has avoided notoriety and
loudness, and with all his success has
been perhaps the most modest man in
California. Although a Protestant, and
in all his feelings an American of the old
New England and New York stock, he
has regarded the old mission-houses of
the Spanish Jesuits in California with a
practical eye, and they were recommend
ed to him for their GOODNESS, their stabil-
ity against storms and earthquakes, and,
on the whole, their picturesqueness and
consonance with a landscape which often
reveals to the mind the similar struct-
ures of the Spanish in the land Of the
Moors about old Granada-Gath, an the
Cincinnati Enquirer.